New to site-36 yr old daughter has BPD Where do we start?

[nanaanna1]

Hi all  I am new to this site. I will try to keep my story brief.  I have a 36 yr old daughter who is coming to live with me because of her BPD and substance abuse issues.  She is divorced, has a 10 yr old son who lives in a stable home with his Dad and Stepmom. They are great about letting his mom see him when possible. For the last 8 years I thought I was going crazy because of DD behaviors.  I say go left and she goes right.  One minute she loves me and the next, if she doesn't get the right answer from me, she hates me.  She has lost her boyfriend, job, apartment, (which we had been paying for), until we realized she was spending the money on drugs-ugh!, license and car so basically has nothing.  We are both scheduled to see a psychologist (probably not the same one) at a good psych clinic at a teaching university this Thurs.  I am driving to pick her up from a treatment center that she has been in for 3 weeks.  My husband of 27 years is her step father, but we both raised her since she was 6.  Her bio father has BPD traits but since he was in the service in the 1960's the VA said he has PTSD (although he never saw any real action in Vietnam).  The reason I left him 32 yrs ago was because of his self-centered and anger (Dr Jekyl-Mr Hyde) and that is what has strained the relationship between my DD and I... .she is so much like him!  Obviously after educating myself about BPD I know my husband and I have a long road ahead to getting our own life back in order before we can get her on the road to recovery.  We are in our 60's and have given her so much money over the past several years we are now struggling.  That is why she needs to stay with us-she has no where to live.  We are about 230 miles from where her son is, in a different state, so this is a burden on us too.  I will have to drive her to NA/AA meetings, therapy here where we live which I can deal with, and to the state where she lived to see her psychiatrist once a month to moniter her medications cause she has medicaid in that state.  Anyway, my short story has gotten very long, so in a nutshell--we are overwhelmed, where do we start? Thanks for listening 

Our objective is to better understand the struggles our child faces and to learn the skills to improve our relationship and provide a supportive environment and also improve on our own emotional responses, attitudes and effectiveness as a family leaders

[Tim300]

Thank you for sharing your story.  We can all learn by sharing and reading each others' stories.

[lbjnltx]

Dear nanaanna1,

Thanks for telling us more about your upcoming situation. 

How long has it been since your daughter last lived with you?

Some very big changes are coming your way.  Are you prepared for them? 

Might I suggest learning the tools that are to the right of this page... .validation, boundaries, and SET?

You will need them to try to maintain your relationship and some peace in your mind and in your home.

We can help with any questions you might have and work through problems with you.

Glad you are here!

lbj

[Mama-san]

 

Welcome to the site.

You did a very good job of keeping your story brief!  You have so much going on it is easy to see how you would be overwhelmed!  This is a good place to start seeking answers and support.

First, ditto everything lbj stated in the previous post.

Next,  you have my absolute empathy.  We have a DD36, BPD and substance abuse.  It is heartbreaking.  Like yourselves, we also did everything possible to love, support, encourage her to help her help herself.  Because she is an addict we will not let her live with us- she lies, cheats and steals. We recently made the difficult decision to stop supporting her and helped her move to the city shelter where she entered their recovery program where she is warm, safe and dry with 3 meals a day.  We realized we were doing about 95% of the work, she was doing 5%.  Not a good balance!

All of this has been tough on our marriage, too. 

It has helped me tremendously to understand I cannot help my DD.  I must let life bring her lessons.

Glad you are on the site. Keep posting.